The Brahman's of the Black Yajurveda is preserved in the school of the Taittirlyas, and bears the name of the Taittiriya-Brahman'a, differing but little in character from its SanhitA.
As regards the Samaveda, SAyan'a enumerates eight BrAhman'as con nected with it, namely, the Pro ud' ha (also called rdn'd'ya- or Pancha rinia), the Shad'rins'a , the Sit maridhi , rsheya-Brdhn amea, the Dam ' tddhydya- Brahman' a, and the Upanishad, which, according to Professor Miiller Anc. Sansk. Lit.' p. 349) is probably the Upanishad. The first two are the most important of these works, the Panchavins'a treating of the sacrifices which are performed with the juice of the Soma-plant, in rites which last from one to one hundred days. The Sha'drins' a is remarkable on account of the incantatory ceremonies it describes ; it ends with a chapter on omens and the rites to be performed on unlucky occasions, such as diseases, or at portentous occurrences, such as earthquakes, unusual phenomena, and the like.
The Brahman's of the Atharvaveda is the Gopatha-BrdAman'a. "That it was composed after the schism of the Charakas and VAja saneyins (the followers of the Black and White Yajurveda), and after the completion of the Vajasaneyi-Sanhita, may be gathered from the fact that where the first lines of the other Vedas are quoted in the Gopatha, the first line of the Yajurveda is taken from the Vajasaneyins, and not from the Taittiriyas. It is more explicit on the chapter of accidents than the Brahman'as of the other Vedas .... The ceremonial in general is discussed in it in the same manner as in the other Brahman'as." Anc. Sansk. Lit.,' pp. 451, 452.) The Sanhita or collection of Mantra, and the Brahman'a, constituto that which is properly called the sacred literature of the Hindus, time Veda ; they are also comprised under the name of S ruti or revelation. But in speaking of the Veda we should not feel justified in leaving unnoticed that class of works, one portion of which is so Inti mately connected with it that it was held by later generations in the same awe as the Veda, whereas another portion has become so essential an appendage to it, that it was justly called Vedanga or "limb of the Veda." The former category comprises the theological or theosophical writ ings, which have sprung from the Brahman'a, and are perhaps more popular among European students than any other portion of the Vaidik literature—the Upanishads. The word Upanishad is rendered by the native dictionaries " mystery." 5"ankara, the great Vedanta philosopher and gloasator of the Upanishads, assumes that the word being derived from the radical sed,—with the prefixes spa and amongst others has also the sense of " deatroyipg," literally means the science which distroys erroneous ideas or ignorance.
European scholars, on the contrary, have expressed the belief that it " means originally the art of sitting down near a teacher, of submis sively listening to him" (from ups " below," ei " down," and and "-to sit" (for instance, :SI tiller, Ane. Sauk. Lit.,' p. 319). But there is n strong probability that the word has been already used by a Ilindu grammarian, who preceded the existence of the Upanishad works, in the sense of "secret" (Goldstiicker, p. 141, note 164); and since this meaning is not incompatible with the etymology of the word—which may signify " entering into that which is hidden "—it seems certain that at no period the Upanishads were looked upon as mere lessons imparted to their pupils by old divines, but as the mysterious science which, through bestowing real knowledge on the human mind, leads to the attainment of eternal bliss.
For such is the object of all the Upanishads; and the knowledge they intend to convey is chiefly that of the production and nature of the world, of the properties of a Supreme Divinity, and of those of the human soul, which they conceive to be part of it. The same object is pursued, and the same views of the nature of the divine and the human soul as in the Upanishads are entertained by the Vedanta philosophy. We perceive therefore at once the close connection which exists between the Upanishads and this orthodox system of Hindu philosophy. Their difference, indeed, is merely that which separates the beginning from the end of a certain kind of philosophical reasoning. In the Vedanta the Hindu mind possesses a system which endeavours to deduct and to connect its ideas on the creation of the world, on the identity of the absolute and individual soul. Its method would not stand the test of our philosophical reasoning; but its explanations evidently aim at scientific precision and shortness of expression ' • and they are generally free from mythological mysticism. In the on the con trary, there is merely the material for a system of philosophy. The subject treated of by them is frequently dealt with in a desultory manner; it is intercepted by legends and allegories; it is adapted to the form of dialogues ; it abounds in repetitions and verbose phrase ology. But all these negative features of the Upanishads must be viewed in the mirror of the Hindu mind; and then we easily comprehend that, accessible to the popular understanding of the educated, they became the basis of that more enlightened belief which at all periods of Indian history has struggled against the idolatry and the gross practices produced by a misconception of the sacred texts, and doubtless also by the interested motives of a degenerated clam of priests.